Called Into Mission

October 19, 2025

Rev. JT Smiedendorf, Acting Lead & Intentional Interim Minister 

Text: Luke 4:16-19

Download a printable PDF of this sermon here

 

CENTRAL FOCUS:

To uplift the centrality of mission in the church and how we respond to a call into that mission.

¹⁶When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, ¹⁷and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because God has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to set free those who are oppressed,

¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

These are the words of our ancient tradition.

May these words become Living Wisdom within us, among us, and beyond us.

I invite you to think about the power of a call. Think about calls you have received that changed your life. A call about a loved one, a call from a loved one, a call to offer you a new opportunity, a call to inform you of a death or to prepare for one. I think about the first call I had with my wife, Allison. I think about the call I had with a couple of Plymouth folks on the Interim Ministry Search Team who told me how much they wanted me to come here. Some of us have had pagers that tell us a place to call. Years ago, when my pager from Denver Children’s Hospital went off, it was always a call into a critical situation that needed ministry. How those calls can change our lives, the calls we receive and the calls we make.

The power of call lies in its disclosure of truth, of communicating what is—and what that truth might mean for the direction of our lives and of our neighbors, and for the needs of Life. In our ancient stories of faith, over and over again, God calls to the people or to a person, calls them into a new life, calls them to serving a mission bigger than themselves and their lifetimes. Abram was called to get up and move. Moses was called to liberate his people. Esther was called into courageous truth telling. Mary was called into revolution through pregnancy and giving birth. Each was called into a purpose, a focus, a mission that was ultimately compelling and convicting and led to a deep commitment.

Jesus’ call to mission, as heard today from Luke’s early Christian community, was inspired by the Prophet Isaiah. It came from a section of Isaiah from a time after many of those in southern Palestine, the state of Judah, were exiled to Babylon. This calamity was understood at the time to be because the people had not really maintained justice in the land, had not really cared for those in need, those who were oppressed. Those who had time to observe religious ritual were chastised in this Divine Voice because they had missed the point of the spiritual practice of fasting and probably the whole point of faith. The fast that God wanted was to set free those who were captive and oppressed, to care for the homeless poor, to offer food to the hungry, to stop the pointing of the finger and to set themselves free from that which bound and blocked their hearts. Then they would know the Light of God and feel strength and refreshment, said Isaiah, then they would become a blessing to those yet to come, then they would repair the breach in community and repave the streets.

At some point or at many points, Jesus heard this prophetic, Isaiah-shaped call to mission. Perhaps from his mother or from Joseph or from others around the synagogue. Perhaps from John the Baptist. We know that call, in the spirit of Isaiah, was heard by Jesus and he responded with a life changing YES. God’s call to him translated into a ministry that was driven by a mission to proclaim and live out the Realm of God where people know recovery and release and freedom, where Good News comes amidst hopelessness, suffering, alienation, and injustice. Because Jesus said YES to his call to mission, we are here right now, because it then called to others to say YES and join that mission. It still does to this day.

Some years ago, The World Council of Churches issued a statement about the church and mission. Like me, you may be glad to know that the old models of missionaries coming from the centers of cultural power being sent out to those in the third world to convert them to Christianity and tell them what they need are no longer valued. Now it is more mission from the margins, of learning from others, of being in cooperative service, of caring for all including the earth. What struck me particularly in this WCC statement was when it said that it is not the church that has a mission, it is a mission that has a church.

It is a Mission that has a church.

It reminds me that Jesus did not come proclaiming the church. He came proclaiming the Realm of God, a reality where the blind would see, the lame would walk, the captives would be set free. He came proclaiming a critique of religion and power without justice and mercy. He lived out a faith in God and forgiveness of others. He taught a way of living that invited all into a courageous and compassionate way of ending cycles of mistrust and hate and condemnation and of opening to healing and Grace and joy. He asked people into the internal journey to remove the log in their own eye, to love the enemy even while resisting oppression, to live from a deep love of God and neighbor as self.

This was the mission that Jesus gave his life to and for. Something that called to him and claimed him. Something bigger than him. This was the life-giving mission that drove his gathering of others into community and into discipleship.

What inspires such a call and such a response?

The religious scholar whom Jesus answered with the story of the Good Samaritan had the answer. Plymouth Church has the answer: LOVE.

Perhaps because we have felt the love of God, because we have experienced that God is love, and because that kind of experience of love makes us bold and overcomes our fear. That’s when we surrender to the call and say YES. God’s love and God’s Realm, when truly experienced directly or through others, leads us to love ourselves and others. It leads us to hear God’s call to mission.

Jesus must have experienced this depth of the Love of God and the reality of the Realm of God (what is often translated as the Kingdom of God). He heard that call and focused on that mission. Jesus did not call attention to himself, except when he was really calling attention to how he was embodying the mission, living out the Realm of God. The Divine call that he heard in his soul was to this mission of living in the Love—where there is release and recovery and healing and forgiveness and justice. 

It is a mission that has a church.

This means the church is just a vehicle, a means, a base camp for that mission. Our church building is a tool. This means that the church is not as much a club meant to serve its members, as it is a community called to humbly seek and serve love within us, among us, and beyond us. We learn to love ourselves as God does. We learn to love each other as God loves the other, even the enemy. We learn to love all people and all Creation. Says Isaiah, if we embody love with each other, we will know God’s presence.

We will feel that urgent drive to pursue this Divine mission of which Jesus spoke because we feel the painful exclusion of love for those oppressed and hungry, for those who are held captive externally or internally. We will feel this compassionate pain for the parts within us that are hurting and bound in this way. Following Jesus in this mission, we are invited to grow so much that we can feel also the hidden pain of those who are the oppressors and persecutors.

The mission of Plymouth Church is to humbly seek and serve God within, among, and beyond ourselves because we have been shown a God of Love by the life and teachings of Jesus and the other great traditions of faith. And not merely shown, but affected, touched, converted, convicted, claimed by that Love.

In my short time here, many of you have told me stories of how important Plymouth church is to you. I hear you. It’s become important to me, too. And I hope we will both stay in touch with the importance that’s deeper than Plymouth Church, the mission of Love. I would suggest that Plymouth is important only because something that Plymouth has been able to hold or express or do is Love—the love that enables recovery, release, freedom, forgiveness, connection, belonging, justice. Our music, our prayers, our preaching and teaching, our service is only important if it serves the mission of love.

And as we have been shown by Jesus and our ancestors of faith, the call to mission, if we say yes, does ask something from us. Saying yes to mission with Plymouth for me meant living away from home, spending significant time in airports, evening meetings, holding this church and this city in prayer. What will you do and be, knowing that we are called to mission?

Today we have/had a presentation on where we are as a church. We are in a time to reconnect with our mission and with the challenges of supporting that mission. We could hear the Scripture anew today

¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Plymouth,

because God has anointed Plymouth

to bring good news to the poor.

The Holy One has sent Plymouth to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to set free those who are oppressed,

¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Let us hear the Divine call to mission and be a mission that has a church.